Distance regulation systems belong to the prior art and have become available in many vehicles. Furthermore, these systems (so-called stop-and-go systems) can sometimes decelerate to a standstill and can start again from a standstill. During automatic starting at traffic lights, the number of vehicles which cross the traffic lights during a green phase depends, inter alia, on how quickly the vehicles start. The lower the acceleration and the greater the reaction times, the fewer vehicles can pass through the traffic lights during a given green phase duration. Against this background, a so-called “electronic towbar” may be helpful since it makes it possible to (virtually) simultaneously accelerate subsequent vehicles with shortened distances, in which case the safety distances implemented by systems already in series use are considerably undershot. Precisely these safety distances result in time windows which are not used to cross the traffic light system. However, if an electronic towbar known in the prior art is applied to all of the vehicles waiting at the traffic light system, a driver whose vehicle cannot use the green phase must manually release the electronic towbar to the person in front of him and must decelerate his vehicle before passing through the traffic lights. However, his vehicle has reached a considerable speed up to this time, thus resulting in abrupt deceleration and wasted kinetic energy.
An electronic towbar may make it possible for a line of vehicles to rapidly start and to optimize the traffic flow across intersections by means of a high vehicle density. However, such a method is useful only for a particular number of vehicles: in addition to the first vehicle, the second vehicle in the line in front of traffic lights will presumably also be able to cross the traffic lights in the same green phase. However, this is doubtful at least for a tenth vehicle inside the line. If this tenth vehicle now drives behind a ninth vehicle, likewise in a manner coupled to an electronic towbar, and this ninth vehicle indeed manages to cross the traffic lights in the same green phase as the first vehicle, but the tenth vehicle does not, this results in an uncomfortable braking intervention in the tenth vehicle if it is not detected in good time that the tenth vehicle cannot pass through the traffic lights during the same green phase. Since the tenth vehicle has been unnecessarily accelerated and the kinetic energy is at best partially recuperated when stopping at the traffic lights, a moderate acceleration maneuver or “creeping” to the traffic lights would have been able to considerably reduce the energy requirement. Against this background, the disclosed embodiments provide an improved method for the line start at traffic lights.